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The Global Experience, The Concept of Hollowness, Emptiness, Abuse of…
The Global Experience
Kafka On The Shore
Synopsis: Kafka on The Shore is about a young boy named who names himself Kafka based off a popular song after running away from his father. Along with running away from his father Kafka is also trying to runaway from fate which is in his a bad omen involving his mother and sister who disappeared from his life at a early age. The story coincides with the tale of Nakata a elderly man who stuffers from the result of a serious wartime affliction from childhood.
Shintoism
Shintoism is a religion that gives life to natural objects and nature. In Shintoism it is believed that there a existence of numerous spirts that inhabit sacred places and is involved in human lives and affairs.
Shintoism in Kafka on the Shore is shown through the magical realism elements of the novel such as the talking cats that Nakata interact with showing a tie to nature. Many elements that involved with Shintoism is involved with Nakata such as him meeting other spirts such as Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders.
In the novel the lines between the real world and spiritual world is thin and often times seem to cross over throughout the novel giving the book a sense of magical realism
The concept of Hollowness is apparent throughout the book as Hollowness is defined of having a lack of imagination. The term Hollow Man that is coined in the book is a person who is close minded and unwilling to learn. They do not see the value of what a person could be just either what they are.
Hollowness
This Mournable Body shows Hollowness in its main character Tambudzai as the character feels empty and unfilled for multiple reasons such as feeling her education was a waste, envious of her students confidence and showing lack of empathy. She even out of her way and joining the mob who was harassing her hostelmate, Gertrude.
In Kafka On The Shore, the concept of hollowness is introduced as is shown by a few characters. On of the characters that show hollowness is Kafka's father as his lack of imagination is what lead Kafka to leave. The father's insistent that his son will follow the Oedipus like prophecy shows that he lacks the imagination of who his son could really become.
Examples of hollowness in The Vegetarian is the multiple men in her life treats her. The first part of the book is narrated by Mr. Cheng, Yeong-Hye's husband . In the majority of the section he never mention her name and the reader does not get that information until Yeong-Hye's mother says it on a phone call. She is refereed only as his wife because that's the only role he could see her in. To serve him and nothing else, so when she became a vegetarian it come as a complete surprise because that was not the role he had picture her in.
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The Vegetarian
Han
There is no agreed upon definition but can be described as a highly subjective experience and is described a strong, very intense emotions.
In Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Janina stuffer intense emotions from losing her dogs and watching other animals being murdered which drives her to put matters in her own hands by killing the people who hurt the environment and it's creatures.
In Go, Went, Gone Richard is overcome with great empathy as he tries to help the refugees that he had formed a bond. Richard have the feeling of being torn after one of the people that he helped stole from him . He chalks it up as just swallowing the lost figuring that if the person took it then they must had really needed it.
The Vegetarian has relation to Han due to the themes of isolation, separation from society and separation from one's self. Yeong- hye stuffers from a lot of trauma in the hands of her father from her abusive childhood and her brother in law raping her.
Synopsis: The Vegetarian is about a woman named Yeong-hye who decides to become a vegetarian after having a dream. The summary may seem simplistic but what makes the novel stand out as we never get Yeong-He's point of view of things. But instead get it from her ex-husband's, brother in law's and sister's reaction to the news of Yeong-He stop eating meat.
Attempts to take control
In The Vegetarian Yeong-hye tries to take control of her body by refusing to eat meat anymore in a society that heavily endorses it. She is given a lot of backlash from putting herself apart of society. Yeong-He is many things : a daughter. the wife and a object of last . However that does not have to do with anything of who she is.
In NW Leah's tries to take control of her body by having a abortion and taking birth control pills to keep herself from getting pregnant again without her husband knowledge. In contrast with Yeong-He who is open about taking control.
Quote: On page 160 "Only after all this time was she able to understand why Yeong-hye had said what she did. Yeong-hye had been the only victim of their father beating's" (Kang)
NW
Synopsis: This novel follows the four characters Leah, Nathalie, Nathan and Felix who is trying to survive their lives in their council housing neighborhood/ area.
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In NW Nathalie has a lack of identity due to her comprising her life of what she society would expect of her. She goes out her way to copying Mrs. Hanwell tea service and tries to sneak a high end bottled water in her mother's shopping cart. It appears that she is copying off others of what is seen as high end wealth that keeps her down. However this life is not fulfilling for her but instead is empathy which leads her contemplating suicide and cheating on her husband
In This Mournable Body Tambudzai in a way has the feeling of lack of identity do how she constantly move around in her career and not having stable footing throughout the book. Like Nathalie even though Tambudzai puts in the effort she is not satisfied with her life which causes her attitude. Her jealousy of her students caused her to lash out on her students.
Quote: On page 214 "When being bullied Keisha Blake found it useful to remember that if you read the relevant literature or watched the pertinent movies you soon found that being bullied was practically a sign of a superior personality, and the greater the intensity of the bullying the more likely it was avenged at the other life..."( Smith)
This Mournable Body
Synopsis: After quitting her job Tambudzai is set to put her life on track. However the choices that she makes leads her with terrible outcomes leaving her feel hollow and unfulfilled .
In The Vegetarian there are multiple abuses of power against Yeong-hye but one of the serious examples is that it's revealed near the end of the novel that Yeong-He was abused during her childhood by her father. There is foreshadowing of this revelation during the family dinner scene and her father force feeds her meat showing that does not respect his daughter's choices have had used violence as a method to control her.
In This Mournable Body Tambudzai abuses her power as a teacher taking out her aggression on her students even injuring one of them to the point that the student needed surgery. Tambudzai was technically in a leadership position but used that position to take her frustrations on her students because she was envious of them not feeling like a outsider like she does.
The national idea that Zimbabwe women that was formed in war but Tambudzai was not part of it as she was away at school. She got a western education during a civil war. She have given up so much and now doesn't have anything to show for it.
The concept of caring for a child being hit is beyond Tambudzai's understanding. She is cold and malice, that empathy is not a thing for Zimbabwe women. But in reality this is really self-justification for being harsh and believe Zimbabwe women don't deserve or should give sympathy. She feels like her cousin have been ruined by Europe. However it's Europe that have made her harsh.
Quote: On page 67 "The only reason for Christine's closeness to your family while being a stranger to you was that their bond was formed during the war you were absent from the village" (Dangarembga)
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Go, Went, Gone
Synopsis: Richard, a retired professor becomes interested in a group of refugees decides to help them. By the end of the story Richard goes out his way to break the law to help house these men.
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Exit West
Synopsis : While living in a country that is close to war, a young couple: Nadia and Saeed finds a way to leave their country by a series of doors that can transport them. The more doors they go through the farer they are from their homeland.
Immigration
In the book, Nadia and Saeed is forced due to their circumstances to leave their country and travel to another place for a safer life.
Berlin Refugees in Go Went Gone had to leave their home country and at first goes to Italy then Berlin to look for work.
Hamid point is that all this violence is real and is happening to real people. Not to be seen as vague chaos in a poor country. Nadia and Saeed are trapped in this country as only the rich can get plane tickets, so their trapped. The doors are a game of chances .
Quote: on page 230 "they watched the young people of this city pass, young people who had no idea how bad things once were..." (Hamid)
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